If anyone else is struggling differentiating between 逃れる, 逃げる, 逃がす, 逃す, I thought I'd share my mnemonics

WaniKani
1

I’ve been so frustrated with these 4 verbs, that I finally sat down and tried to understand how they differ.

  1. The first thing I noticed is that 逃 will always be pronounced のが if the following kana isn’t one of the “g” forms. So 逃れる is のがれる and 逃す is のがす. The other two words will always pronounce 逃 as に.

  2. This is slightly crude, but for both verbs that mean “To Let Go”, they both end with がす, so I kind of just imagine “passing gas” as “letting go” (farting) the gas lol

  3. If you need a mnemonic for remembering に for the “to escape” verbs, you can think of having to escape a burning building, by getting on your knees to crawl under the smoke.

Using these concepts, I can always determine the pronunciation and meaning of the 4 verbs, at least until it’s drilled in well enough that I don’t need to think of a mnemonic to pronounce them.

I hope this helps someone else! Wanikani is an incredible tool, but I sometimes think it does a poor job of helping differentiate these words that all use the same kanji and have very similar meanings (but different pronunciations)

EDIT: Also I now realize I might’ve posted this in the wrong topic. Unsure where sharing mnemonics should be, but if it needs to be moved, let me know and I’ll move this thread elsewhere

10 Likes
2

Haven’t got to that vocabulary yet, but I’m sure this will be very useful; thank you! :smile:

1 Like
3

I had a similar idea when I came across that…

1 Like
4

逃す (のがす) has no が in the okurigana. That’s how I remember the readings.

2 Likes
5

This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.